PS 4

Playstation 4 Release Date Headquarters (Continually Updated)
While the PlayStation 3 is just now hitting its stride, and has its best days still ahead of it, Sony is not one to rest on its laurels, and with the intense competition in the video game world at present, plans for the PlayStation 4's future release are already being put into motion. In fact not only is the PlayStation 4 getting this treatment, but even the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 6 are in the early stages of planning and conceptualization at Sony's R&D labs.

Although we've yet to see what the PS3 can fully do when really put through its paces (in fact Sony states that games currently on the market are not even close to pushing the system to its full potential), the thought of an even more powerful console looming on the horizon has gamers worried about the holes it will leave burning in their pockets, but giddy at the possibilities of what this new behemoth of a console will be able to pull off. Just imagine the hardware on this thing, it will be insane!
The Question Everyone Wants the Answer To...
As a result, the question on everyone's mind is, when will the PlayStation 4 see the light of day?!?!? While Sony has not released any official information concerning the system's future launch, the generally accepted release date is pegged as late 2012, which would follow the trend of Sony's previous console generations. The PlayStation 1 was first released in late 1994 in Japan and 1995 throughout the rest of the world. The PlayStation 2 hit stores in 2000, giving the PS1 a retail shelf life of 6 years from its Japanese launch. Likewise, the PlayStation 3 came out in 2006, 6 years after the release of the PS2. Following this trend that Sony has established would give us a late 2012 release for the PS4.
Other rumours have also circulated of late which backs up these claims. At last year's Game Developer's Conference in Germany, the CEO of Crytek announced that his company's development of their next-generation graphics engine, the CryEngine3, will release in 2012, around the same time as the PlayStation 4. Although he stated he had no concrete information that the PS4 would be released around this time, and that even if he did, he would not be at liberty to share that information, he expected this to be the release window of the new system.
The Business of Sales (Or How to Get a PS4 Sooner by Not Buying a PS3)
It's possible that how the PlayStation 3 fares in the current console war may also determine the release date of the PS4, for a couple of reasons. If the system continues to flounder in 3rd place in the console wars, failing to generate the revenue which was initially expected of it, Sony may be far more eager to cut their losses and rush the PS4 to market sooner rather than later, possibly as early as late 2011.
If the PS3 does indeed fail to make ground on the Wii and Xbox 360, it may also convince Sony to try and jump the gun on the next generation console wars and get their system out the door first. Both the PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2, which dominated their generations of the console wars, came to market at the same time or earlier than their competition. The PlayStation 1 was launched just after the Sega Saturn, and well before the Nintendo 64, while the PlayStation 2 was released before both the Xbox and Nintendo Gamecube.
This enabled Sony to get a head start on the competition and gave developers time to build their skills at developing games for the console, to the point that even as more powerful consoles came after, games released on the older system were just as good technically, providing no real incentive for players to move to the new consoles.
This same effect has worked against the PlayStation 3 to some extent, as though considered to be far more powerful than the Xbox 360, the one year head start the 360 received has allowed developers to more quickly maximize the system's potential, resulting in games that rivaled games on the PS3 when it released. Only as the system's life spans come to an end will we likely see the PlayStation 3 come out with games that clearly trump what the 360 can do graphically.
How Sony plans to play their hand is cause for much speculation. What we do know is that the PlayStation 4 is coming sooner than we may think, and it will take gaming to a whole new level.
Let us know what you think. Will we see the PlayStation 4 within the next 2-3 years, or is the release further off? Feel free to comment below. You can also join our forums to voice your opinion on everything PlayStation.
Update - October 2011
Developers of the Uncharted franchise, one of the most successful to launch on the Playstation 3, made an announcement today in which they state "The Playstation 3 could not sustain another installment of Uncharted". The announcement went into details about plans the developers had to improve the franchise but the current technological capabilities of the Playstation 3 would not be able to support such plans. This was a shocking announcement to the industry, with many of the experts arguing that the Playstation 3 has yet to be pushed to its true limits suddenly silenced by this information. What does this mean for me or you? The release date for the Playstation 4 is going to come sooner than most people are expecting.
Update - September 2011
In a recent interview with Sony's Director of Global Operations, EuroGamer discovered that Sony are quite willing to discuss the next-gen console, it's just that they don't feel there is a need to. In the interview, Shuhei Yoshida went on to explain why Sony are in no rush to pump out announcements about the next-gen Sony console.
It basically boils down to the game developers, while they're still able to improve their products using the Playstation 3, Sony see no need to develop and release the Playstation 4. Ubisoft and a few other companies have expressed their concerns that current hardware restrictions on the PS3, with the main problem being Ram, are reducing the quality of the games they could develop but industry experts have said a simple Ram upgrade could extend the shelf-life of both the Xbox360 and PS3 by several years but it's not something we expect to see.

This console generation has seen some real innovative titles hit home consoles, games such as L.A Noire, Grand Theft Auto IV and Mass Effect proved that current generation consoles still have what it takes to give us a great gaming experience but is it the best we could get? It's inevitable that Sony will release a next-gen console, the Wii-U is a year away, the Xbox 720 a year after that, Sony has been around a long time and is worth an estimated $60 billion, so it is safe to expect them to bring something to the table that can compete with Nintendo and Microsoft.
Sony doesn't remain one of the most respectable companies on the planet by drawing the short straw, they know what sells and they know how to design it. It's known that the Playstation 4 has been in development for some time now and it has been said that developers already have access to the SDK tools used to create new titles. Just because the juicy details about the PS4 haven't been leaked yet, don't assume they're not there. With all the information accumulated on here and other PS4 fan sites, it's confirmed that the Playstation 4 is coming, it's just a matter of when...